


Alone Among People

by VODLIX



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alien/Human Relationships, Child Loss, Gallifreyan Biology (Doctor Who), Gallifreyan Culture (Doctor Who), Grief/Mourning, Hive Mind (sort of), Interspecies Relationship(s) (kind of), Loneliness, Other, Survivor Guilt, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, Touch Telepathy, Touch-Starved, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27821890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VODLIX/pseuds/VODLIX
Summary: He didn’t need to be strong when their minds met.Now all he has is his strength.——A character study on the incompatibility of a touch-telepathic Doctor in a world void of his own kind.
Relationships: The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who), The Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/The Doctor's Wife
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Alone Among People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerartist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerartist/gifts).



There were things that made The Doctor different. Aspects of his behaviour— his very biology— that came across as so distinctly non-human, that they were hard to miss. Like eating a bitter almond, the cyanide sticking to your tongue, making you all the more aware that this man was wrong, by any human’s standards.

One such attribute was his interactions. Somehow the embodying a gravitation towards people while practising the abstinence of human touch.

The manner in which his fingers danced a console and grasped at The Master as he died in his arms, was much the same behaviour brought to light.

The Doctor was not touch-averted, but rather telepathically deprived. He craved the voice mutually prodding his consciousness. He craved the comfort and safety of feeling someone’s honesty bared to him through holding hands. The trust and raw emotion shared and fuelled by bumping shoulders or knocking knees.

Instead, he had this: River’s hand in his, dead resonation reminding him of how wrong it felt to hold a human. To marry one.

She touched him and told him he was beautiful. That his mind was beautiful. He couldn’t see hers. She couldn’t share it.

River told The Doctor he was as full of life as the galaxies he loved. He found he felt far too hollow to believe her. That in touching her, he felt like he could fall apart. A mirror glass imitation of a Gallifreyan, unable to feel reciprocation.

And now he didn’t even have that.

He’d think back to the days with his first wife— the feeling of the company in his own skull. On Gallifrey, among Time Lords, touching skin was a far more intimate gesture than Kissing. Sharing one’s mind, honestly and wholly, demonstrated a trust few of their kind could honestly give.

Carrying his third child to bed and feeling the overbearing love and adoration of his kin. Holding his precious granddaughter, afraid but holding far too much hope for one small body. He didn’t need a name when it was just him and another sharing thought. He didn’t need to be strong when their minds met.

Now all he has is his strength.

He was alone, and humans are the phantoms of his kind.

**Author's Note:**

> It's not much, but its honest work.


End file.
